We’re all on mandatory overtime this month; we’re behind, or we want to get ahead. I never got the memo, really, other than the brief note of “you are working overtime until…well…further notice” with no explanation. I don’t mind: extra cash —- time and a half — good karma for when I decide I’ve had enough for one day and need to leave early. It happens often.
This was a short notice thing, nothing planned out. One day we weren’t working overtime and the next, we had to. At least 9 hours a day. It doesn’t bother me any; I have a kitten to go home to. Other than that, just the book I’m currently reading and probably a sandwich. I might be lucky in that respect, honestly. Coworkers, though, have to scramble to find babysitters and if they are unlucky…? Well, they bring them to work after 5PM and let them run around the aisles slowly destroying any sense of urgency we might feel to get things done.
It is hard to work when children walk over to my cubicle, see my toy robots, want to play with them. I want to stop what I’m doing and play with my robots too. Most days I can resist that urge, but when a 10 year old boy and his 5 year old brother are here and want to play “robots destroy the Earth” with me, I can’t say no. The answer is always, unequivocally, yes.
The 10 year old and the 5 year old don’t judge the 20something playing robots with them — they happen to really love it — but other adults scoff at me and, I can only assume, think I’m doing whatever I can to get paid to not work. If they only knew that at any point during the day my hands may be typing on the keyboard in front of me, absentmindedly responding to e-mails, but my mind is elsewhere. The twenty minutes I spend running around the office with children more than half my age are the only twenty minutes during my time at the office where all of me — body and mind — are present during the workday.
I stop running around eventually, drag my body back to my cubicle and semi-comfortable office chair, but my mind has already left the building. It is scheming, plotting, planning the robot take over, my take over, anything to get out of here — to go home and read, cuddle with my kitten.
The next day, after business hours have passed, I hear a papers-are-rustling noise on the other side of my cubicle. The inside wall trembles briefly. I hear tiny giggles coming from above. I look up and I see four brown eyes and two blonde haired heads peeking out from over the wall.
“I see you!” they shout. More tiny giggles. I grab my toy robots, jump on my office chair, announce the robot take over of the world, and run around the office with these two boys chasing after me.
